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Honor Codes

Bloomberg.com reports that several Ivy League Universities are refusing to subscribe to plagiarism detection resources claiming that, "using software would undermine the trust between teachers and students."

A recent survey attributes decrease in cheating to Duke University's honor code, which was introduced in 2003.

The latest figures, gathered last fall from more than 2,000 students and 300 faculty members, show a drop in plagiarism from 38 percent in 2000 to 26 percent last year, while unauthorized collaboration -- students working together when individual work was required -- dropped from 45 percent to 29 percent.

Duke's student newspaper, The Chronicle Online, reports on the Community Standard, "the ideal governing integrity at the University for the past year." The Standard replaced the school's Honor Code in 2003 and differs from the former code in three ways:
"It increases the emphasis on students reporting other students’ Standard violations. Furthermore, students who are found to be in violation of minor academic integrity offenses and are first-time offenders can now resolve their issues through faculty-student conferences, rather than through the University’s judicial system. The third departure is the Standard’s provision for the punishment of academic violations to be tailored to fit the severity and the circumstances of the offense."

The Houston Chronicle reports on UT Austin's adoption of an honor code.
Student leaders at UT say they've wanted an honor code for years. But school officials began pushing for one as well in 2001 after five students were caught cheating on exams and essays within a two-week period.

Duke's Office of the Dean of Students has handled an increase in the number of academic integrity violations this spring. "This spike comes at the end of the University's first full academic year under the newly-implemented Duke Community Standard. The refurbished honor code emphasizes peer responsibility for reporting instances of dishonesty, the opportunity for faculty-student resolution of violations and greater flexibility in sanctions."

University of Georgia's revised honor code has benefited students as well as faculty. Under the new code, "first-time violators have a moderated talk" with their professors to work out an appropriate "punishment."

Louis A. Bloomfield, the physics professor at the University of Virginia who was at the center of Virginia's notorious plagiarism scandal in 2001, gives a thoughtful interview in The Richmond Times-Dispatch.